Karamo answers two audience questions: Melissa, who lost her mom six months ago and cut ties with her dad, needs help grieving while raising three kids alone. Karamo says arrange a weekend away to fully feel it, screaming and all, because unprocessed grief erupts later. Roxanne's partner ghosted her after engagement; Karamo tells her to stop replaying the fantasy and grieve the relationship that actually existed, not the one she imagined.
Chapters
Hey everybody, it is time for Q and K with my audience. Any of y'all got a question for me? Hey cousin.
Hi.
You cute too.
Thank you.
You're welcome. What's your name?
My name's Melissa.
Hey Melissa.
And my question for you, Karamo, is that I lost my mom last year, 6 months ago, and I recently decided not to have a relationship with my father. Not everybody who's a parent deserves that title. I just need a little bit of advice with navigating grief and just life in general.
Yeah. So first of all, so sorry about your mother's passing. I know you've heard that before. Give yourself grace on that process because when a parent passes, it is something that the grief can pop up at any moment. You could be a year later, 2 years later, 3 years later, and a smell or something's gonna trigger you. and the sadness comes back. Sometimes that grief doesn't just go away. So I want you to give yourself grace. And I think that's the thing that I remind people the most, that as you're grieving, allow the emotions to come and give yourself grace for when they come and allow yourself to feel them because it's going to come. When it comes to your father, it sounds like there was a lot of this decision-making already you kind of made before, but something probably was the catalyst that made you say, this is the time. for me to do this for myself. And so what I'm hearing is in one of the hardest moments in my life, when I should have someone to hold me up, the person that I look to to hold me up is not there. And how am I supposed to deal with the fact that I had to grieve not only my mother who's gone, but grieve someone who's living? Grieving someone who's living is something that's very difficult because you expect, especially a parent-child dynamic, We expect them to be there to support us, to love us. I don't wanna give you just generic advice right now. And the reason that I'm pausing right now is because this is fresh. This is not a year or 2 years. This is 6 months in. There's some healing that has to be done before we say do this. So what I'm gonna say to you is I'm gonna talk to you a little bit after.
Okay. Okay.
But secondly, just in this time, try to surround yourself with as much people who love you and will allow you to vent.
Thank you.
Because what you need right now is people to hear your pain. You need people who are going to not tell you, oh, be quiet. You need somebody. You got a best friend or somebody that you talk to all the time?
Really, I have my sister, but we're— I'm trying not to put that on her 'cause she has her own with our mom passing and our father.
Yeah.
I'm afraid to talk about it because I feel like I'm gonna break down.
Yeah.
I have 3 kids, you know? So I feel like I do embrace my emotions, but I'm scared to talk about it. I'm scared to really let all those emotions out. Yeah.
So I'm gonna tell you this, and the reason I gave that advice, 'cause I already kind of assumed that, you have to let 'em out. You have to let 'em out. And so a practical piece of advice that I'd give you is to find somebody who can hold your babies for a weekend, who can make sure your babies are fine and they know they're good. And then you find one person who you say, for this weekend, I need you to let me let it all out. I need you to let me scream. I need you to let me cuss. I need you to let me laugh. I need you to let me like giggle about stuff. I need you to let me have every range of emotion. Because until you do that, what's gonna happen is always gonna feel like it's at the surface. And then what, and what I know about grief is that at the wrong moment, it will come out.
Right.
And it'll be a situation where your kids might say something, but it triggers it.
Right.
And now the dam is open and now you feel guilt because it's like, damn, I didn't mean to put that on my babies.
Right.
So you have to do that work before and you have to have a moment to let it all out. Okay then?
Thank you.
Yeah, hold on, before you go, lemme give you a little hug, mama. I'm glad you're here. We got you. We love you and we got you, okay?
Thank you.
We love you and we got you.
Okay? Yes.
Let me talk to you a little bit. Yeah, you're welcome, baby, okay?
All right.
See, this is why I like Q and K, because this is why we feel connected. Like, it's a moment where y'all trust me enough to ask me a question and get advice from me. But also, like, it's where I feel connected because I'm sure somebody in here, somebody at home, Y'all can relate to what she's going through, what they're both going through. So listen everyone, make sure to come back. As I tell y'all, you bring the Qs and I'll keep bringing the K. All right everybody, it is time for Q and K with my audience. Does anybody got some questions for me? How you doing?
Good.
Good, what's your name?
Roxanne.
Hi Roxanne. So y'all don't know this, before on the commercial break, Roxanne tried to gimme her friend number. She did.
He told me to.
I know. Roxanne, so tell me, what's your question?
My question is, why is it that no matter how old you are, you're in a relationship, a new relationship, everything's going great.
Mm-hmm.
The person proposes to you.
Mm-hmm.
You accept the proposal, and then 2 weeks later, they disappear.
Mm.
So you're sitting there contacting this person, no response. Everything was great. Everything was going well. The dates were wonderful. The time spent together, the weekends together, everything was wonderful.
Mm-hmm.
The engagement, outta town, called the best friend.
Well, there's 2 things I already know. First of all, this happened to you.
A friend of mine.
Yeah, okay. This happened to you. So thank you for being vulnerable and tell us. To propose and get ghosted is a horrible thing.
It is.
So I'm sorry, a horrible thing. But what I heard very quickly is that you created a fantasy and I heard you repeat that fantasy to yourself and you're still repeating it to yourself. You're telling me the weekends were good, this was great, we loved each other, we did that. The answer is none of that is true because if it was true, he would still be here. And so what happens is sometimes we replay this fantasy in our mind about a relationship and we build that fantasy till it feels like the truth. But the real truth is that if it really was those things, you would still be happily engaged right now. So you have to reevaluate the story you're telling yourself that's keeping you attached to a man that was really never right for you in the first place. And that's the truth. Because what happens, and I've been there before, so this ain't a judgment. I have told myself a story about somebody and been like, oh my gosh, they were so great. And then afterwards I'd be like, I made all of that up. And it's not—
But it seems real.
It does seem real. It does seem real, but what's real is the action when he left. That's the realest of it all. Because in a real relationship, a loving relationship, a healthy relationship, he would stay and have communicated his feelings. He would've stayed and tried to say, this is what I'm fearful of, how can we work this out? He would've asked for resources, said, let's go to couples counseling, let's figure out something. That's what would've been real. But what he did was showed you who he was and how he felt about the relationship. So you have to stop romanticizing the time y'all spent together and be real about what actually happened, which was he was not happy. It wasn't as good as you thought because he's gone. And that is your first step in grieving the pain and the relationship that you had. And that's the real, that's the rip the bandaid off. 'Cause you telling yourself a story, girl, that ain't true.
But my question is why?
Why what? Why?
Why go through all that? Why put the effort through everything?
That why doesn't even matter. And let me tell you where that why comes from. That why comes from the relationship you romanticized in your head. You're questioning why when I saw this, Why, when you did that? Why, when we had this weekend? But like I just told you before, all of that is fake. How do we know it was fake? Because he's not here today. And even if he was here, he didn't do the work to show you that he cared about you enough to actually try to make this work. So you asking why, it don't matter.
Yeah.
It don't matter. You gotta stop chasing ghosts, girl.
Okay?
Thank you.
Yeah, amen.
I'm sorry, I gotta dole out the tough love today. I gotta give the love today. I don't believe in tough love. I gotta give you the real love, the truthful love. Listen, everybody, I love my cousins in the audience. I really do. I love y'all. Everybody, you keep bringing the Qs and I'll keep bringing the K.
